Last night while grocery shopping (I know, that never happens), I was looking at some stuff in the deli case when this woman behind me had what appeared to be a breakthrough of some sort. I say this because she looked as though she left reality/her body for a moment. I heard behind me a great inhalation and gasp. This made me turn around for fear I might be in danger of some sort. Then she exclaimed, “Oh my god! I can’t believe it!” as she grabbed a package of sausage from it’s hook with both hands and held it to her bosom. “From my childhood!” she tried to explain desperately, seeming in disbelief herself as she tried to make her shopping companion understand as she herself seemed nearly unable to grasp the sudden impact this finding had. She stood there a bit just holding and staring at this sausage in it’s vacuum sealed package. The kind that is a single link but shaped like an open-ended teardrop.

This encounter had an effect on me. “Certainly I’ve felt that way about something before,” I thought to myself. She just seemed so happy! As though that sausage was some sort of missing link in a wonderful chain of memories and this link being what would finally drive her to pure happiness forever and ever, infinity! As I grow older, every day, little snippets of childhood memories start to come together or they don’t. I find that I can remember things quite vividly now that I couldn’t recall at all just a few years ago. Things from my childhood do certainly bring me to a temporary state of bliss. Sadly, as a kid who grew up during the 80’s, most of those things are being modernized and re-sold to a new generation of kids who will never know or see their original form.

Food is such a comforting thing sometimes. When you’re a poor kid? It’s even more so. I certainly remember eating almost that same sausage as a “treat” for dinner as a kid. I remember getting some change together with my childhood best friend Riana, saddling up on our bikes and heading to the 7-11 for a spree of Jolly Ranchers, Now And Laters and sometimes taffy or soda. We were always able to stretch our quarters and dimes. Often she and I would hit up Manor Market for a big bar of taffy and a matching soda (for $1, no kidding), I’d always get strawberry, she always grape. We would head back to her house and bedroom with our spoils and laugh and enjoy our treats. We would giggle as the taffy would sort of lean over while resting against our soda cans. We’d pretend that the taffy wanted some soda, too! We made up stories and names for them. Then we’d play with our Strawberry Shortcake dolls and giggle some more.

When a friend mentioned getting a writing assignment for my hometown and the YMCA there I immediately said, “The one by Palm Park, right?” he wasn’t sure, but I was. And suddenly all of the good and bad memories and days upon days spent at that very park came flooding back. The heartache and shame. The stolen bike. The dirty magazine we found in the bushes that time. The tire swing. The splinters and scrapes. The cartwheels and frisbee games. And later, the boys and the make outs, the bickering and the end of an era. I hope I never forget my childhood and Riana. While there was some terrible stuff at times, it was mostly fantastic. We always had something to do when we were together. Even completely bored, we weren’t alone and that seemed enough most times.

Last night I was mentally putting together “the ultimate outfit” in my head (as I often do) and had a sudden spark of memory of my own, brighter than light itself: The perfect belt! And it came from my childhood! Not only that, my husband said he had the same fucking belt?! WTF?! How rad is that? The belt? Clear plastic skinny belt with rainbow pinstripes and a tiny metal/silver horse shoe buckle. Wow! I need this belt in my life NOW! Anyone else remember such a thing?

I say let’s all embrace these funny and quirky memories and just go with them. Let us all get swept up in a moment like the lady at the grocery store and just be in awe of that moment itself. Let it wrap it’s nostalgia around you and carry you back into childhood dreams and fantasies! Because it was back then that hopefully we didn’t care what anyone else thought of us, we were just kids and that was all we needed to be. <3

“Sausage & Belts: Childhood Memories”

Your post made me remember when I was a kid, probably 12 or 13, and how I used to buy blueberry jelly bellies at the mall–because I thought they made me SOOO sophisticated. Also, a certain kind of musty old used book store can take me right back. It has to do with the smell and the amount of light.

[…] PW! Just seeing his face after all of these years? It brought tears to my eyes. I felt like that lady at the grocery store when she saw the sausage of her childhood! I can’t exactly explain the emotions I was feeling at that moment, other than to say that […]